by Unknown
Why am I afraid now? he thought. When I was impotent I was secure. It isn’t safe to have balls. Now I ramp like a stallion while my soul is sick with terror. Stallions surely aren’t afraid, lions aren’t afraid. I have a lion. I don’t have a lion — a lion has me. A lion hallucinates me. To a lion appears Jachin-Boaz in the early morning. When I was impotent I was safe. What was all that nonsense about wanting my manhood, idiot that I am? Let him starve, that lion. I don’t want to see him. They can go on transmitting but I won’t receive.
For several days Jachin-Boaz, awaking at the usual time, went back to sleep, sulking, while in his imagination the lion grew thinner daily. Beside him every morning at half-past four Gretel woke up, waiting with closed eyes for him to go out while Jachin-Boaz went back to sleep, dreaming dreams he would not remember.
Jachin-Boaz was dreaming. With a microscope he was looking at an illuminated drop of water. In the water swam a green and spherical form of many-celled animal-algae. Thousands of tiny moving whips on its surface made it revolve its green-jeweled globe like a little world.
Jachin-Boaz increased the magnification, looked deep into one of the hundreds of cells. Closer, closer through the luminous green. Oh yes, he said. The naked figures of his father and mother copulated in the brilliant field of the lens with darkness all around them. So big and he so small. A shoulder turning away within the luminous green world in the drop of water.
The cell withdrew, grew small, receded into the green and turning world that closed up again, its whips propelling it in sparkling revolutions.
Unlike the infinitely ongoing asexual amoeba, said the lecturer, this organism has differentiated within itself male and female cells. Sexual reproduction occurs, followed by another phenomenon unknown to the amoeba: death. In the words of one naturalist, “It must die because it has had children and is no longer needed.� That is why this wheel dies. The invention of the wheel is nothing compared to the invention of death, and this wheel invented death.
Jachin-Boaz increased the magnification again, again looked into the same cell. Darkness in the brilliance. His mother cried out. The lecturer, nodding in a chalk-dusted gray suit, came between him and what was happening in the darkness. This is the wheel that invented death, he said.
Jachin-Boaz hurled himself into the dark and shining tube of the microscope, saw the green wheel bright before him, leaped upon it, holding it to him, trying to stop its turning.
The wheel won’t die, he said, biting it, tasting its wet greenness. This wheel has had children but he doesn’t die. The lions die.
It seems a kind of intellectual suicide, said the lecturer, looking down on Jachin-Boaz who lay in a paper coffin, his beard aimed up at the lecturer whose beard was aiming down at him.
Now you’re dead, said Jachin-Boaz to the lecturer. But the paper coffin lid came down on Jachin-Boaz. No, he said. You, not me. Turn it around. Let the little green cells die instead. It’s always I who die. It was I then and it’s I now. When is it my turn, when the others die?
It keeps turning but it’s not your turn, said the lecturer. Never your turn.
My turn, said Jachin-Boaz. He was walking away from the coffin, looking back at it and noticing that it was much shorter than before. There was no father’s beard sticking up. The hand that held the map was smaller, younger. My turn, my turn, he wept, smelled the lion, wept and whimpered in his sleep.
Gretel woke up, leaned on her elbow, looked at Jachin-Boaz in the dim light, looked at his bandaged arm that he flung over his face. She looked at her watch. Four o’clock. She turned on her side away from Jachin-Boaz and lay there, awake.
At half-past four Jachin-Boaz awoke, feeling tired. He did not remember his dream. He bathed, shaved, dressed, took meat for the lion, and went out.
The lion was standing across the street. Jachin-Boaz crossed to him, threw him the meat, watched him eat. With the lion-smell in his nostrils he turned and walked towards the embankment, not looking back.
When Jachin-Boaz and the lion had gone some distance down the street towards the river a police constable stepped out from behind a corner of the building where Jachin-Boaz lived. He stepped back as Gretel came out, fully dressed, with a carrier bag in one hand.
Gretel looked towards the river, then followed Jachin-Boaz and the lion.
The police constable waited a few moments, then followed Gretel.
Jachin-Boaz walked along the embankment on the side away from the river. He stopped at a garden above which rose a statue of a man who had been beheaded after a theological dispute with a king. There was a bench on the pavement. Near it was a telephone kiosk. The sky was cloudy, the before-dawn light was gray, the bridges were black over the quiet river.
Jachin-Boaz turned and faced the lion. Down the street a girl with a carrier bag stepped into a doorway. Beyond her a man’s dark figure turned into a side street. There was no one else in sight.
Jachin-Boaz sat down on the bench. The lion lay down on the pavement five yards away, his eyes on Jachin-Boaz’s face.
“Always the frown, like my father,â€� said Jachin-Boaz. “How was I to be a scientist, father Lion? Science is knowing. What could I have known? Others always did the knowing, knew what was in me, what should come out of me, what was best for me. I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted. I know less now, and I am afraid.â€�
The sound of his own voice and the words he was saying became boring to Jachin-Boaz. He felt a wave of irritation flooding through him. He didn’t want to say what he was saying. What did the lion want? The lion was real, could kill him, might very well do it at any moment. Jachin-Boaz felt himself disappearing into terror, felt himself coming back, went on.
“My thoughts are useless to me, and I cannot remember my dreams. I have forgotten more of my life than I remember, and with my forgetting I have lost my being. You expect something of me, father Lion. Maybe only my death. Maybe you are too late for that. Maybe I have beaten you to it. Not that my death belongs to me.
“One of my teachers said it was an intellectual suicide when I failed my examinations. But science is knowing, and how could I know anything, how make a profession of knowing? Little things, yes. Places on a map.
“When you kill yourself you kill the world, but it doesn’t die. He’d had a bad heart for some time, so it couldn’t have been my fault altogether. Why did he never talk to me? Why did he seem always to be talking to a space that I hadn’t moved into? Why was he always holding up an empty suit of clothes for me to jump into? He talked to clothes I never did put on. A sleeve with no arm in it struck him down. An empty shoulder turned away from him. He closed his mouth and lay down, but he is more alive in me than I am.
“I am a coward, and you are patient with me. You are a sporting lion. You want my death to stand up like a man in me before you spring. You have contempt for anything that turns away.
“But if you kill me I shall then be more alive than ever, strong as the brazen tire on the wheel. My son will feel me heavy and unfinished on his back, big in his mind.�
Jachin-Boaz was silent for a time, then stood up. “Perhaps I too have never spoken to my son,� he said, “but to an empty place where he was not. Now I talk to you, his anger. I will stand before you, look at you. If I did not look at him at least I will look at you, his rage. My rage. Can I roar like you? Can I make a big sound of whole anger?� Jachin-Boaz tried to roar, broke off in coughing.
The lion crouched, gathering himself, lashing his tail. The lion roared, and the river of lion-sound rolled beside the other river, thunderous under the broken sky.
“No!� cried Gretel, running towards the lion from behind. “No!� She had thrown away the carrier bag, and held the carving knife she had concealed in it. She held the knife in the manner of knife-fighters, with the blade extending the line of her wrist, ready to thrust in and up.
“Get back!� shouted Jachin-Boaz. But the lion had turned at t
he sound of Gretel’s voice. Jachin-Boaz saw the muscles bunching for the leap, threw himself on the lion’s back as it sprang, his fingers locked in its mane, his face buried in the coarse rank hair.
The lion, turning his head to seize Jachin-Boaz’s right arm in his jaws, landed short as Gretel jumped aside.
“Here!â€� shouted the constable, striking the pavement with his truncheon. “This won’t do! Stop it at once!â€�
“Into the telephone box!� yelled Jachin-Boaz to the constable. “Get her into the telephone box!�
But Gretel flung herself at the lion, drove her knife at his throat. The blade was partly deflected by the thick mane, but it went in, and the lion let go of Jachin-Boaz’s arm and swung his head around towards Gretel.
“Here!� shouted the constable. He pulled Jachin-Boaz from the lion and thrust Gretel back.
Jachin-Boaz, strong as a madman, hurled himself with arms flung wide at Gretel and the constable, slamming them against the telephone kiosk. Gretel and he together shoved the constable out of the way for long enough to open the door, then pulled him savagely inside.
“No, you don’t,â€� said the constable, his face red. He had been in family situations many times before, and more than once had had the combatants turn on him like this. Simultaneously he gripped the wrist of Gretel’s knife hand and brought his knee up into Jachin-Boaz’s groin.
“Imbecile!� gasped Jachin-Boaz, sinking to the floor with the pain. In a red and golden haze with black and shooting lights he felt a rage too big for his body, too strong for his voice, immense, unlimited by time, amber-eyed and taloned.
“Good God!â€� said the constable, staring through the glass door. “There’s a lion out there!â€�
“Aha!â€� said Jachin-Boaz, exulting. “You can see him now! How do you like him! He’s big, he’s angry. He can say no to anybody, eh?â€�
The constable, jammed between Gretel and the side of the telephone box, was writhing desperately while Gretel, bloody knife in hand, glared at him wildly. “I beg your pardon, madame,� he said. “I am trying to get to the telephone.� He looked away from the lion, dialed his station number, looked back again.
The constable identified himself, reported his location. “What I think we need here,â€� he said “is the fire brigade with a pumper. Big net too. Stout one. No. Not a fire. Animal situation, actually. Yes, I should say so. With a strong cage, you know, as fast as they can. Ambulance too. Well, let’s say a large carnivore. No, I’m not. All right, a tiger, if you like. How should I know? Yes, I’ll be here. Goodbye.â€�
As the constable rang off there was a screech of brakes, followed by a crash. Looking past Jachin-Boaz the constable saw two cars stopped on the road, the front of one and the rear of the other crumpled together. Both drivers remained in their cars. Jachin-Boaz and Gretel were looking beyond the cars at the pavement and the parapet along the river.
“Where is it then?� said the constable.
“Where is what?� said Jachin-Boaz.
“The lion,� said the constable.
“Lions are extinct,� said Jachin-Boaz.
“Don’t try that on with me, mate,â€� said the constable. “Look at your bleeding arm.â€�
“Spiked fence,� said Jachin-Boaz. “Stumbled. Fell. Drunk again.�
“What about you, madame?� said the constable.
“I walk in my sleep,â€� said Gretel. “I don’t know how I got here. This is very embarrassing for me.â€�
“You two stay here,� said the constable. He opened the door of the telephone kiosk, looked all around, and stepped out. The motorists were still there, sitting in their cars with their windows rolled up. The constable went to the first car, motioned to the driver to lower the window.
“Why’d you stop?â€� said the constable.
“Quite extraordinary,â€� said the driver. “Somehow my foot slipped off the accelerator and came down on the brake. I don’t know how it happened.â€�
“What did you see in front of you when you stopped?� said the constable.
“Nothing at all,� said the driver.
The constable walked back to the second car. “What did you see?� he said.
“I saw the car in front of me stop so suddenly that I hadn’t time to stop myself,â€� said the driver.
“Nothing else?� said the constable.
“No, indeed,� said the driver.
The constable took the names, addresses and registration numbers of both drivers, and they drove slowly away.
A polyphonic blaring was heard as a fire brigade pumper, an ambulance, a fire brigade car and a police car, all with flashing lights, arrived at high speed and slammed on their brakes. Armed men came out of the police car.
“Where’s the tiger?â€� said the firemen and the police together.
“What tiger?� said the constable.
“I take a dim view of practical jokers, Phillips,â€� said the police superintendent. “You called for a pumper and a stout net and an ambulance and some people from the zoo with a cage. Here they are now,â€� he said as a van pulled up. “Now where’s this large carnivore or tiger or whatever?â€�
“That call must have been made by this chap here impersonating me while I was unconscious,� said the constable. “I was trying to break up a fight between this couple, and in the struggle my head struck the corner of the telephone box with such force that I was rendered totally unconscious for a short time.�
“Did you ring up for all this then, while impersonating a police constable?� the superintendent asked Jachin-Boaz.
“I don’t know,â€� said Jachin-Boaz. “I feel confused.â€� He was feeling faint. He had taken off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm, and it was now thoroughly soaked with blood.
“What happened to his arm?� the superintendent asked the constable.
“Spiked fence,� said Jachin-Boaz.
“She had a knife,� said the constable. “Best give it me now, madame,� he said.
Gretel gave him the knife. There was no longer any blood on it.
“Are you putting them on a charge?� said the superintendent.
“I believe,� said the constable, “that these people are in a mental state that makes them a danger to themselves and to others, and I think that we had better have them committed for observation under the Mental Health Act.�
One of the men from the zoo came over to Jachin-Boaz. He was small and dark, looked from side to side constantly and seemed to be sniffing the air. “I don’t suppose I could have a look at this gentleman’s arm?â€� he said.
The police constable unwrapped the bloody jacket from Jachin-Boaz’s arm, peeled away the blood-soaked torn shirt sleeve.
“Yes, indeed,� said the man from the zoo to Jachin-Boaz. “Very mental. How did you come by these particular teeth-marks?�
“Spiked fence,� said Jachin-Boaz.
“Knife,� said the constable. “Also, she may have bitten him during the struggle.�
“Regular tigress,� said the zoo man smiling, showing his teeth, sniffing the air.
It was full morning now. The sky had got as light as it was going to be that day. The clouds over the river promised rain, the water ran dark and heavy under the bridges. Cars, cyclists and pedestrians were active on the embankment. The pumper, with horn blaring and light flashing, went back to the fire station. The ambulance, also flashing and blaring, followed with Jachin-Boaz, Gretel and the constable in it. The police car followed the ambulance.
The zoo van stayed where it was for a time while the lit
tle dark man walked all around the telephone kiosk, back and forth before the statue of the man who had lost his head for some notion of truth, and up and down the pavement along the embankment. He found nothing.
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban(1973)
-25-
The world seemed to be owned by a freemasonry of petrol stations, monster tanks and towers and abstract structures of no human agency or purpose. Wires hummed aloft, giant steel legs stalked motionless on frightened landscapes past haystacks, mute blind barns, wagons rotting by dunghills on tracks to isolation where brown dwellings shrugged up from the earth. We knew it long ago, said huts with grass on the roofs. Hills went up and down, cows grazed on silence, goats stared with eyes like oracle stones. Cryptic names and symbols in strong raw colors flashed signals one to the other across the roofs and haystacks, across the stone and lumber of towns and cities. Flesh and blood spoke ineffectually in little voices of breath, feet hurried, plodded, pedalled. Faces passed on the road asked unanswerable questions. You! exclaimed the faces. Us!
The petrol stations, owning the world, called to their brother monsters. Distant towers flashed lights. The petrol stations kept up their pretense, fuelled cars and lorries, maintained the fiction of roads for humans. Vast pipes slid effortlessly over miles of world. Huge valves regulated flow. Lights flashed at sea. Music played in airplanes. Never did the music name the pipes and petrol stations, the great steel stalking that laughed with striding legs. God is with us, said the valves and towers. With us, said the stones. Cars moved on roads.
Boaz-Jachin felt the miles spinning out behind him. Mina’s leg was warm against his. Her leg was named Mina like all the rest of her now. Her someoneness had established itself in him since the nights in her stateroom.